


belvedere

by Mantykora



Series: MadaTobi Week 2018 [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Day 1, Language of Flowers, M/M, MadaTobi Week 2018, Soulmark/Soulmate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mantykora/pseuds/Mantykora
Summary: flowers never lie





	belvedere

**Author's Note:**

> **Premise:** In this world soulmates are people fated to cross each other's paths again and again, and influence each other's lives regardless of the nature of their relationship. The soulmates telegraph their strong emotions to each other by flowers with specific meaning. For example, if one soulmate feels strongly in love, the other one will have Roses blooming on their body (pretty uncomfortable, tbh).
> 
> This is a world were Izuna Uchiha still died, so Madara and Tobirama aren't on good terms with each other.
> 
> Part of MadaTobi Week 2018 - Day 1: Soulmark/Soulmate.

Tobirama tracked Madara to a seedy tavern on the outskirts of Konoha's borders.

When he entered, the buzz of dozens of noisy conversations from the settlement's patrons assaulted his ears. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of stale air and putrid food prevailing in the small building.

Heads turned when he made his way toward the table in the corner where he could see a sprawled form of Madara Uchiha. By the distinctive lack of people around him it seemed that the man was not a desirable drinking companion.

The whole set up at least assured him that Madara had not been meeting someone behind their backs.

Tobirama stopped at the table and cast a disapproving look at Madara's state and the number of empty sake bottles around him. Even the number of lavender and nasturtium flowers covering the space did not take anything from the wretchedness of the scene. 

"Disgusting," he spat.

"Done lurking, are you?" Madara replied without even raising his head from the cradle of his arms.

Tobirama ignored the accusation and moved to the reason behind his intervention.

"Get up, Uchiha," he ordered. "Don't make a public spectacle out of yourself."

Konoha had an image to uphold and having one of its founding fathers getting plastered in some god-awful district defiled it.

Madara only snorted at that, but lifted himself off the table. Without an ounce of shame he picked the nearest bottle and drank the content. Putting it down, he knocked down other bottles that rolled all over the table and to the floor. The noise caught the attention of some of the patrons.

By the self-satisfied look on Madara's face Tobirama assumed the man planned to be contrary.

Tobirama gritted his teeth.

"Stand up or I will make you," he threatened.

Madara smirked.

"I'd like to see you try," Uchiha goaded.

Unbestknown to Madara, Tobirama did prepare for such possibility. He grabbed Madara by the robe and before the man could protest, he teleported them outside the tavern to a Hirashin kunai he had planted there beforehand.

They slipped on the mud on their landing.

In his inaberated state, Madara did not take gracefully to being forcefully displaced and lunged at Tobirama. 

Tobirama dodged the first punch, but wheezed when in the next moment Madara's knee connected with his stomach.

He retaliated with a palm strike to Madara's face. The hit connected with a rebounding slap, but the pain of the blow didn't even seem to register with Uchiha.

They came together in a whirlwind of blind punches and kicks, fuelled by their frustration with each other.

To Tobirama fighting a drunk Madara was like wrestling with an unyielding slab of meat. With the exception that Madara did fight back.

Very soon their wrestling turned into a disorganized mess. With pushing and pulling without any technique put behind the blows.

They slipped on the mud and slammed on the ground with Madara's entire weight landing on Tobirama. The shock of the impact briefly knocked them out of their frenzy.

It gave Tobirama a moment to finally have a look around them. There were flowers of various shapes and sizes scattered everywhere. Almost like they did not just had a fight in a dirt behind a tavern, but a very reach garden. The remains of which now lied scattered on the upturned earth.

Some of them Tobirama did recognize quite intimately from his studies. He had seen plenty of them during the latter part of his life. He could also easily identify the species of the flowers entangled in Madara's hair. 

It felt like a slap to the face. The secrets of his soul were laid bare in a flowery composition entangled in Madara's hair. Tobirama felt betrayed.

He startled when Madara reached with his hand and plucked a flower out of his hair. It was a purple cyclamen.

Uchiha cradled the small thing. As he sat up his hair fell around his face hiding him from Tobirama's gaze.

A wretched and broken sob tore out of Madara. It was an ugly thing that he would not be able to witness had Madara not been this drunk. Tobirama was glad that he could not see the other man's face.

As for Tobirama: he was numb.

Buried in the dirt on a bed of poisonous wild flowers it almost felt like a funeral. Fitting, because Tobirama suspected that some part of him had just died.

The bond between soulmates was said to be unbreakable. They were to be forever fated to cross each other's paths and influence them. The truthfulness of their intimate entanglement spelled with the language of flowers. 

It was all there in the letters of white asphodels and purple fumitories, scattered barberry shrubs and dried bay leaves. In the smell of the cypress and the cheerful orange of the marigold. With everything wrapped up in the violet of the bittersweet. 

All this time he had worried greatly about Madara's veiled intentions hidden behind the stony face and unveiled only in short bursts of mad rage. It all proved wasted now. He'd had a good look into Madara innermost demons from the very beginning.

And he hated what he knew.

**Author's Note:**

> **Flower meaning**
> 
>  
> 
> _**Belvedere** \- I declare war against you_   
>  _**Lavender** \- Distrust_   
>  _**Nasturtium** \- Patriotism_   
>  _**Cyclamen** \- Resignation and Goodbye_   
>  _**Asphodel** \- My regrets follow you to the grave_   
>  _**Fumitory** \- Hatred_   
>  _**Barberry** \- Sourness of Temper_   
>  _**Bay leaf** \- I change but in death_   
>  _**Cypress** \- Death Mourning_   
>  _**Marigold** \- Grief (depending on the species they can also mean 'Vulgar minds', 'Jeleaousy', 'Prediction')_   
>  _**Marigold and Cypress** \- Dispair_   
>  _**Bittersweet** \- Truth_


End file.
